


[fic] you seem to turn into everyday words.

by youcallitwinter



Category: Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Peter Pan (2003), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy - J. M. Barrie
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1223149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcallitwinter/pseuds/youcallitwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same. [oneshot]</p>
            </blockquote>





	[fic] you seem to turn into everyday words.

Being lost cannot be everything, being lost is only the beginning of being found.  
  
And she, she cannot end at the beginning itself. She does not know how, nobody taught her that.  
  
  
-  
  
  
There are no lost girls.  
  
It is a m-y-s-t-e-r-y. Wendy spells out words in her head, rolls them over around her tongue, like mama used to when Wendy was very little and Michael wasn't even old enough to have been born.  
  
She does not ask Peter why. Somehow, she does not want Peter to think of other lost girls.  
  
This is a mystery too.  
  
  
-  
  
  
There is blood on her underthings and Wendy does not remember cutting herself anywhere. But she keeps bleeding and maybe she will die. Nobody ever dies in Neverland, though, that would be blasphemy. But there are no gods in Neverland, so there can be no blasphemy. Her stomach hurts a lot.  
  
Peter looks at her, worried, and she is inexplicably coloring up, there is still blood enough in her body for that, "Wendy Darling, are you going to die? Please don't die."  
  
 _Wendy, darling, please don't die._  
  
Mama taught her grammar too.  
  
  
-  
  
She does not die.  
  
 _I am glad_ , Peter says, simply.  
  
(There is blood on the stone ledge she used to sit on) (and blood in her bed) (and blood on her clothes) (and blood rushes to her face, too fast, much too fast when Peter gets her a wildflower to pin to her hair) (it is a bloodless white.)  
  
  
-  
  
  
"You must be a god", Peter says, when he is wounded. Hook's iron hand leaves deep scars and there is no salve, not the kind papa buys from the market. There are leaves, but Wendy doesn't know how to read the instructions on the leaves. The forest is dark at night, and she is afraid.  
  
"Just tell me where it hurts," she snaps.  
  
She is bleeding too, again, Peter knows this, she knows, Peter knows everything, Peter watches her with careful eyes. But Peter lies on the bed, drained, and she can walk, and when she stops bleeding, there are no scars.  
  
She presses a cloth to his side, and he slowly undoes her braid with one hand. Only to give his hands something to do, only so he doesn't have to cry.  
  
When she looks up, her hair falls over her face, and Peter pushes it back with the hand he undid it with, tucks a strand behind her ear, and she wants to lean over again, so it will shadow his face like before.  
  
She does not. She does not now do everything she used to, at the moment she wants to. She lets moments pass.  
  
  
-  
  
  
She doesn't die (again.) (Peter doesn't die either.) (She cries when she's alone.)  
  
  
-  
  
  
Peter's hand between her knees, moving up, "you must let me heal you."  
  
She has closed her legs before she's thought it out, his hand captured in between, and she is terribly, terribly afraid and she doesn't know why. Her heart races and she may die from that, even if she doesn't die from all the blood-loss. She has hidden battle scars without ever having been to war. She is a mystery.  
  
"Don't."  
  
"Wendy—"  
  
" _Don't_ , Peter."  
  
He leaves his hand between her legs, his thumb sweeping across the small square inch of skin it can circle without moving, and Wendy knows this is comfort.  
  
Her heart still beats (inside her chest) (at the curve of her throat) (at the base of her wrist) (in the middle of her elbow) (between her legs.) (madly.)  
  
  
-  
  
She doesn't die (yet) (again) (still.)  
  
She really must be a god.  
  
  
-  
  
  
Peter doesn't ask to heal her the next time, or the time after, but he watches, he always does. Tinkerbell doesn't like it, Wendy can tell, and it thrills something inside her that is dark, and hidden, and maybe ugly.  
  
"You are most beautiful right now," he tells her, and reaches a hand out that stops just short of her.  
  
She feels swollen. (And angry.) (And untouchable.) (And untouched.)  
  
  
-  
  
  
 _Heal me_ , she says, in her head, and the girl she is in her head is not afraid. The girl she is in her head does not blush. The girl she is in her head lets Peter touch her, lets Peter heal her. The girl she is in her head does not close her legs.  
  
  
-  
  
  
It is back at home that Wendy understands: there are no lost girls in Neverland because they leave traces of blood everywhere, like breadcrumbs, like a trail, and they are the easiest to follow.  
  
And, eventually, they have to be found. You cannot keep bleeding and be allowed to live, that is unnatural, that is magic; and there are no gods in Neverland, she knows.  
  
(All boys, except one, grow up.) (All girls grow up.)  
  
  
-  
  
  
There is a love affair lost just outside her latched window.  
  
She never opens it, though.


End file.
